O'Connor worked out an agreement in 2006 when he negotiated terms to hire Nicholas Rostow as vice chancellor for legal affairs and university counsel. It gave Rostow the right to a faculty position should he lose his posts at SUNY central administration, which is exactly what happened after Zimpher arrived from Ohio in 2009 and didn't want to keep Rostow.

Zimpher offered Rostow, a New York City resident, a position at SUNY Plattsburgh, which he turned down, and Rostow, using a lawyer, worked out a $500,000 settlement, according to sources apprised of details.

But Rostow didn't get the money. SUNY took the stance that he was offered the Plattsburgh job, didn't take it, and that Rostow could not seek a claim based on the deal arranged by O'Connor, who recently joined Rostow as an ex-employee, according to a well-placed source.

Now Rostow is complaining that Zimpher is treating him poorly, especially in light of Zimpher agreeing to use at least $380,884 in SUNY Research Foundation funds to buy out the former SUNY Binghamton basketball coach for a total of $819,000. The coach had presided over the scandal-scarred hoop program that Zimpher used Research Foundation money to investigate.

Rostow has been appealing a fair severance, which he thought he had won last summer, by having SUNY once again tap the Research Foundation, according to the sources. That is unlikely to happen, a source said, now that expenditures and hiring practices of the RF are under investigation by the state Inspector General's Office and the Office of the State Comptroller in the wake of O'Connor being charged with harboring Sen. Joseph L. Bruno's oldest daughter in a no-show RF job.

Rostow has been complaining privately that Zimpher has reneged on the agreement. Rostow's deal ran into problems because Zimpher proposed turning from the RF and using appropriated funds to buy him out.

That meant the comptroller had to authorize the expenditure and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli would not approve. Rostow did not return a call to his Manhattan home. A SUNY spokesman also did not return a call.

Dudley mum on finances

David R. Dudley was installed in a $90,800-per-year job on the Workers' Compensation Board that runs through 2016 and he apparently needs the money. He lost his nest egg investing with McGinn Smith, which is facing civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is alleged they took investors' money for their own purposes.

Four people who know the fortunes of David Dudley, the former lobbyist and counsel to Senate Republicans, say he lost a bundle investing with McGinn Smith. Dudley would not discuss his situation. The former head of the Rensselaer County Republican Party was then-Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's counsel from 1995 until the end of 1998, a period during which Bruno was working for McGinn Smith trying to encourage labor unions to send pension fund management business the firm's way. Dudley was on the witness list for Bruno's fraud trial but wasn't called, although a principle of McGinn Smith, Tim McGinn, was.